Hospitals affiliated to The Association of Healthcare Providers, (India) have withdrawn cashless services to CGHS beneficiaries from March 7, 2014 onwards. This has been done as CGHS has allegedly repeatedly violated the conditions provided within the MOU signed with respective hospitals.
The release states that though hospitals through their association with AHPI have been holding meetings with CGHS for a year since last March, there has not been any improvement in the working of CGHS. This has forced AHPI to withdraw cashless services.
According to a press release from AHPI, the first grievance is large and long pending payments, which far exceeded the agreed upon time frame. The clause No.-5 of MOU says that CGHS would ensure that payment of hospital claims would be done in time bound manner within the period of 10 days of submission of bills in physical format to Bills Clearing Agency. AHPI claims that this has never happened. The release alleges that it takes weeks and months for hospitals to receive the money.
Secondly, the MOU provides that in the event of a hospital being paid the dues within stipulated period of 10 days, there will be 10 per cent deduction on bills by UTI. While bills have never been paid within 10 days, the release alleges that UTI has imposed a 10 per cent cut on all bills. AHPI opines that this practice is illegal and CGHS has given no explanation for the same.
Justifying their stance, the AHPI release goes on to state that these circumstances make it un-tenable for hospitals to continue giving cashless services as they are not getting paid for services provided for months. According to the release, CGHS’ own dashboard showed Rs 202 crores as outstanding to hospitals as on January 31, 2014. Very little amount out of this has actually been received till now, whereas more bills have been raised and submitted by the hospitals.
The AHPI release alleges that while hospitals are being threatened to continue with cashless services as provided in the MoU, CGHS has avoided the fact that as per the MoU it is obliged to pay the dues within 10 days.
EH News Bureau